Why Off-Page SEO and Backlinks Matters

Many business owners are not aware of what SEO is and the importance of SEO. Many manager and web masters only think of On-Page SEO when they hear Search Engine Optimization. I am going to explain briefly in this post what Off-Page SEO is and why does it matter at all. Off-Page Optimization refers to the process of building your website’s authority to search engines through building reputation and trustworthiness by following the best practices to match what search engine ranking algorithms classify as most relevant for your keywords. I will specifically talk about how backlinks matter today and how Google values links nowadays.

First of all, numbers matter. TheTotal Number of links is considered by Google, eventhough it isn’t a major influential factor when it comes to thousands of spammy, low quality site links. I am only referring to good links from a high ranking, established, trustworthy sites.

Number of Domains/Source: diversity in the number of referring domains is extremely important, meaning that your site should be getting links from different types of websites, such as directories, blogs, video sites, etc. Here is another advanced hint; you should also try to get links from sites with different global IP address resolution… Why? Because Google can identify the links that are coming from varied IP addresses, and global IP addresses explain that you are referred by different people. Most importantly, you should avoid getting many links from the same domain as this will not help you. Some SEO professionals argue that Google discounts influence after the first link from a particular site.

Anchor Text: It is important to vary up the anchor text when creating backlinks for your site. This keeps your link profile diverse and natural looking, and if you think about it, other sites will naturally use different keywords when referring to your business (linking to your site from their own site). So, avoid constantly using the same keyword over and over in your anchor text when running a backlinking campaign

Age: By “age” here, I am referring to the age of the site you are receiving a link from and NOT the age of the link. And similarly, the age of the site enhances directly the authority, and higher page rank of the site linking to your site. Links from newer sites won’t make much difference.

Variation: “variation” here refers to diversity once again. It is important to deliver diverse content, anchor text, source of links, image versus text, and dofollow versus nofollow links, as well. Many years ago, Google said that only DoFollow links would pass influence, while lot of SEO professionals believe that NoFollow links pass more influence than before.

Quality: It is all about the quality links. Receiving one link from a highly ranked and trusted site is far more valuable than thousands of links from spammy blogs. Focus on getting links from highly trusted and established sites even if it is extremely difficult to receive links from. In this case, it’s less about “getting” links and more about “earning” links through techniques like creating and sharing link bait or guest blogging for them.

Relevance: You want links from sites which are relevant to your site. If you’re getting one from a site about cars when your site is all about puppies, Google is likely going to discount the influence that it has as it is very likely that you created that link yourself. In keeping with the variation point, it’s all right to have a few links from irrelevant sites, but generally you’ll be staying in your niche.

Bad Links: On the other hand, the opposite of quality links, bad links will detract from and have an adverse effect on your ranking, so do what you can to limit the number of bad links pointing to your site.

Velocity: Link velocity refers to the rate and schedule at which you’re building links to your site. The key here is to make your link velocity look natural or, in other words, you shouldn’t get 10,000 links one month and 100 the next month. There shouldn’t be many curves in your velocity. You should continue to build more links each month than the one before it.

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